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Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. ESV

Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. The Message

I recently listened to a sermon on this passage given by David Pawson back in the 1970’s. He alluded to the drop-out rate from the Christian ministry in his day – something we are very much aware of in our own times. One pervasive, and persistent reason, for people leaving the pastorate has always been a loss of heart. There are so many factors that can bring this about.

‘Many people crumble in the face of adversity…The need for perseverance in ministry is not confined to stipendiary ministers. The New Testament is clear that every believer is given gifts by God with a view to ministry. Times of discouragement come to everyone engaged in ministry, with the accompanying temptation to give up.’ Paul Barnett.

I have often been encouraged by Spurgeon’s comment: ‘By perseverance the snail made it to the ark!’

‘Keep right on to the end of the road…’

PRAYER: On the eve of a new year, let us pray for our pastors that ‘the Lord’ will ‘direct’ their ‘hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance’ (2 Thess.3:5). May we also pray for ourselves that we will keep going to the very end.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. ESV

When David Watson was Rector of ‘St. Michael-le-Belfrey in York, he told his congregation, ”If anyone comes in here and asks, ‘Who is the minister?’, say, ‘We all are!’ ” He rightly upheld the Biblical vision of every member ministry (the ‘priesthood of all believers’), even though he was one of the most famous clergymen in the Christian world at that time.

Paul was speaking about his ministry of apostleship; one involving preaching, teaching and church planting. But whatever ministry we have, we don’t deserve it. It is given to us by the mercy of God.

We should never think of any church leader as a ‘superstar’. Nor should any Christian leader act like they are. We are where we are and we have what we have by the mercy of God. But for God’s mercy we would be lost and under the wrath of God. Paul was only too aware of what he’d been delivered from:

”For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” 1 Corinthians 15:9,10.

Someone teased out the difference between mercy and grace in this way: ‘God in His mercy does not give us what we do deserve, and in His grace gives us what we do not deserve.

Every believer can wholeheartedly sing these words from an old hymn, ‘Mercy there was great and grace was free.’

‘“Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Saviour.” John Newton

 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. English Standard Version

I was struck afresh by the expression ‘’from one degree of glory to another’’. Here is a gradual, but very real metamorphosis.

I am reminded of the Apostle John’s words:

‘’ Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ‘’ 1 John 3:2 ESV.

I also think about Paul’s words in Colossians 3:4:

‘’ When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’’

C.S. Lewis wrote in ‘A Weight of glory’: ‘It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.’

Prayer:

‘Jesus, you are changing me

By your spirit you’re making me like you

Jesus, you’re transforming me That your loveliness

may be seen in all I do

You are the potter

And I am the clay

Help me to be willing To let you have your way

Jesus, you are changing me

As I let you reign supreme Within my heart’. Marilyn Baker.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

In the New International Version of the Bible, (quoted above), there is a footnote next to the word ‘’contemplate’’ saying ‘or reflect’. As we have seen, the NLT combines both ideas.

I always tend to think about Christians reflecting the glory of God before a watching world, and that is surely the case. But Tom Wright makes the point that first of all we see His reflection in the church – in one other. He writes: ‘When the sun rises in the morning, depending on what time of year it is, it often strikes the windows of one of my neighbours before it strikes mine. And his window reflects it right into my house. I look at my neighbour’s house and see the brightness of the sun.’

It is our joy and privilege to have ‘front seats’ at God’s work in each other’s lives. How it gladdens our hearts to witness the changes the Holy Spirit makes in fellow-believers: to see the growth, the gradual transformation; to watch fruit growing and dead leaves falling.

I remember a song from years ago that says, ‘O I love you with the love of the Lord, I can see in you the glory of my King, and I love you with the love of the Lord.‘

 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. NIV.

In our recent readings in 2 Corinthians, our attention has been arrested by the theme of ‘’glory’’. We have seen that the glory of the New Covenant far surpasses that of the Old. With all of this in mind, for Christmas morning, my thoughts turned to this familiar verse in John chapter one. What a beautifully economical statement of the truth of the incarnation:

‘Our God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man’ is how Charles Wesley framed it.

There is a real sense in which every Christian can say, ‘’We have seen his glory’’ – not in the way the apostles did; they who were with Him in His days on earth. But our seeing of ‘’his glory’’ is no less real and transformative. Also, as we saw yesterday, it is as we continue to behold ‘’his glory’’ that we are changed into his likeness ‘’with ever increasing glory’’. This is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

PRAYER: On this Christmas Day, Lord, cause many people in our world turn from the trivia and fripperies to see you in all your glory.

 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. NLT

The greatest freedom in the world is the freedom to become like Jesus. This transformation increasingly happens in the life of the believer. The more we ‘’see’’ the glory of the Lord (in the Word, by the Spirit), the more we are metamorphosed from ‘caterpillars’ into ‘butterflies’. Seeing the Lord’s glorious beauty, and reflecting it are two sides of the same coin.

I once heard about a famous author who lived on a street where a godly Christian man also had his residence. Apparently he said, ‘As long as I live on the same street as that old man, I cannot doubt that there is a God.’

PRAYER: Lord, I ask that you will make my life into living evidence for your glory. Help me to keep looking at you, to keep my gaze fixed on you. Enable me to reflect your glory, at Christmas, and all through the year.

 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ¹⁷ For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. NLT;

Yet if they “turned to the Lord” the veil would disappear. For the Lord to whom they could turn is the spirit of the new agreement, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, men’s souls are set free. J.B.Phillips

When people talk about freedom, and politicians engage in the fight for freedom, they tend to mean freedom to be and do what they choose. It is the liberty to be oneself and fully express oneself without reference to a Higher Power. But the freedom the Spirit of God creates in a person’s life is that to become everything God made them to be. It is the freedom to worship, and to increasingly become like the One we worship. It is the kind of freedom George Matheson had in mind when he wrote, ‘Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.’

It is the freedom found in turning to the Lord. Surrendering to Jesus as Lord may not sound much like freedom. But those who do, find in Him the truest form of liberty.

In the Old Testament story that provides the backdrop to this passage (Ex.34), the time Moses removed the veil was when he went back into God’s presence. ‘So Paul takes Exodus 34.4 (‘whenever he turns back to the Lord, the veil is removed’) and quotes it with a wider meaning: now, whenever anyone turns to the Lord – the word ‘turn’ here could mean ‘convert’ or ‘repent’ – the veil is removed. (We should note the implication: that, when someone turn to the Lord, they will be able to understand the true meaning of the Bible.)’ Tom Wright.

I remember David Pawson saying that he once led a Jewish lady to Christ. ‘Within five minutes,’ he said, ‘she was teaching me the Bible!’

PRAYER: At this Christmas time, may many people turn to the Lord who came to save them; cause many hearts and minds to see.

 But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. ¹⁵ Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered with that veil, and they do not understand. NLT

Here is a great spiritual reality which we have to reckon with: although our message may be unveiled (i.e. clearly and boldly stated, vv.12,13), for the non-Christian people who hear it, there is a supernatural veil over their ”hearts” and ”minds”, so that they are unable to see the truth. Here Paul is writing specifically about the Jews, but in the next chapter, and verses 3-6, he says that this is true of all people. The language he uses is a little different, but he is undoubtedly writing about this same spiritual reality. He attributes the cause of the supernatural blindness to Satan, and he shows that it will take a miracle of God shining in the human heart to enable the sight of His glory ”in the face of Christ” (4:6). But God performs such miracles time and again. For both Jews and Gentiles the blindness can be removed. Sight is gloriously possible.

‘…since the problem which caused Moses to wear a veil in the first place was the state of the heart of the people, we can see that the veil still lies over the law itself, the ‘old covenant’, when it is read in the synagogue. In other words, the law really would reveal God’s glory; it really would point forward, like a great story in search of an ending, to the coming of the Messiah. But for those whose hearts are not ready for it, it is ‘veiled’. Tom Wright.

Jesus pointed out to the Jewish leaders of His day, however, that their blindness was wilful, and therefore culpable. Have a look at John 5:39,40;45-47.

Since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold. ¹³ We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so the people of Israel would not see the glory, even though it was destined to fade away. NLT

This is a statement about Paul’s ministry. He is going to be ”bold” in clearly stating New Covenant truth. He isn’t going to ”veil” it in any way.

Tom Wright says: ‘The Corinthians, we may assume, had criticized him for his blunt, clear, no-nonsense teaching. They would have preferred something more oblique, more fashionable, something less dazzling and inescapable, something less demanding.’

He also explains: ‘The Corinthians have allowed themselves to imagine that an apostle – a leader of this new movement that they’d joined – ought to conform to the standards of showy leadership, flowery and entertaining speaking, personal charm and flattery, that they were used to in their culture.’

But Paul just speaks clearly and openly and directly.

I am reminded of some words from John White, who, as I recall, said Christian witness is really about honesty, plain and simple. We are not in hiding about who we are and what we believe.

”Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” 1 Peter 3:15 NLT.

PRAYER: I pray, Lord, that this very day I will be ready to explain my beliefs about you to anyone who asks. I don’t want to live my life in hiding. And may people ask!